Just this month, it was named "outstanding documentary" by the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation, winning a Gracie Allen award.

Sorvino says the film has raised awareness of the issue, helping to raise funds to build a school that, when completed, will offer hope for more than 1,000 children in the region.

“Primary and especially secondary education is extremely important in preventing trafficking,” she says. “It allows children to develop critical thinking skills to be able to defend themselves from traffickers and to have the skills that will enable them to have gainful employment to be able to support their families in other ways than being sexually exploited.”

But Sorvino adds that it’s not just about helping the victims. “The demand side really needs to be addressed,” she says. “If people weren’t trying to buy child sex it wouldn’t be being sold.”

It’s a global problem, affecting people on every continent, and for the last four years The CNN Freedom Project has been shining a light on modern-day slavery.

Here, we look back at the Freedom Project so far, remembering some of the stories we have covered, and looking ahead at what still needs to be done.

]]>http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2015/03/25/the-freedom-project-so-far-2/feed/12015-03-25T05:52:02+00:00CNNI Blog ProducerBusiness can break slavery chainshttp://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2015/02/13/business-can-break-slavery-chains/
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2015/02/13/business-can-break-slavery-chains/#commentsFri, 13 Feb 2015 23:27:25 +0000http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/?p=5482]]>Editor’s Note:Tammy Lee Stanoch is the Vice President of Corporate Affairs at Carlson. She has more than a decade of executive leadership experience in the airline and travel industry. The opinions expressed are her own.

I have an 11-year-old daughter and, as a mother, would risk everything to keep her safe. So today, I shuddered to learn that 180 Degrees, a Minnesota-based nonprofit, just rescued a 10-year-old girl from sex trafficking.

The good news: She’s now safe. The bad news: There are countless more like her. But with the passage of Minnesota’s Safe Harbor law, we are now able to provide shelter, services and a safe haven to help this girl and others like her.

Where I live isn’t India, which has the largest number of people in modern slavery, 14 million, according to the Walk Free Global Slavery Index. It’s Minnesota – largely Scandinavian, the setting of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon.

But here, and around the world, girls and boys are falling prey to human traffickers.

The International Labour Organization estimates there are 21 million human trafficking victims worldwide making the forced labor and sex trade one of the greatest human rights violations of our time.

The company I work for, Carlson, has been on the frontline of the war against trafficking for more than 15 years. The lessons we have learned as a global hospitality and travel company and the experiences we have had along the way in our fight to end this scourge inspire me, and can serve as a model for other companies that want to take a stand, use their influence and play an important role in ending this horrific act.

It began in 1999 when Marilyn Carlson Nelson, former chairman and CEO of Carlson, was among the first to speak out on the issue of human trafficking in the hotel and travel industry.

After hearing horror stories about how children were being exploited in hotels, Marilyn joined philanthropic forces with Queen Sylvia of Sweden and the Carlson Family Foundation co-founded the World Childhood Foundation. The mission: To care for the world’s street children and protect them from abuse and exploitation.

At the time, the company’s legal advisors were worried this connection would draw negative attention to our hotels, but Marilyn was not dissuaded.

Yes, she was one of the world’s leading business executives - but she was also a mother, and brand new grandmother who had a profound insight while holding her new grandson. “This child is so loved by so many, yet all of our personal success and nurturing won’t be able to protect him if we don’t do something on behalf of those children in the world without a family, without hope, and without a future,” she said.

At that moment, Marilyn became an advocate for 21 million enslaved children worldwide.

In 2004, Carlson became the first global hotel company to sign the ECPAT Code of Conduct. By the start of 2015, 40 U.S. travel leaders, including Delta Air Lines and Sabre, have joined the fight to abolish modern day slavery.

Awareness Advocacy and Legislation

We require anti-trafficking awareness training in our 1,500+ Carlson Rezidor Hotels worldwide so all employees - from the front desk to housekeeping - can spot signs of trafficking and report them to authorities. We openly share our training materials with competing hotel companies and law enforcement because we want everyone associated with the industry to fight this crime.

Minnesota is an epicenter of anti-trafficking legislation at the State and Federal level. I strongly support bipartisan legislation, including the Stop Exploitation through Trafficking Act, co-authored by Minnesota’s U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D) and Congressman Erik Paulsen (R). This is where my political experience aligns with my personal passion.

In my job, I lobby for legislation that ensures minors who are sold for sex are treated as victims, not criminals. We have to have tougher penalties for pimps; more funding for the National Human Trafficking Hotline; and job skills, shelter and services for trafficking survivors.

Prevention and Survivor Services

Through philanthropy, I believe we can fight slavery at the source - before it happens - and also provide a pathway to safety, hope and prosperity for trafficking survivors.

A van and a set of benches. In the global fight to end human trafficking, they are probably not the first weapons that come to mind.

But on the ground in places like Cambodia and India, anti-trafficking advocates say these are tools are at the top of their wish lists.

“We have over 350 children in our school from different areas of the community. Some children have dropped out because they lack transportation," says Julie Harrold, director of U.S. operations at Agape International Missions (AIM). "Parents don’t want their children walking to school because the roads are dangerous and kids are propositioned on the way to school."

Now there's a way to help from anywhere in the world.

The Cambodia-based AIM, dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating victims of child trafficking in the southeast Asian nation, was featured in the award-winning CNN Freedom Project documentary 'Every Day in Cambodia.’

The girls from the villages who’ve been walking to school have had incidents, and the families have gotten scared of the girls making the walk. So they try to cover the distance with rickshaws.

“The school is focused on empowering female leaders,” says Joseph Schmidt, founder of EndCrowd. “They need a van. Folks have been exciting about buying a van, to help these girls get to school in Cambodia. The fact that the over-arching issue is fighting modern-day slavery is a bonus to the people who have gotten involved.”

Schmidt is a successful entrepreneur who founded and sold several companies, including canvasondemand.com, which took photos and printed them on canvas to look like oil paintings.

In 2011, after he had sold Canvas On Demand, he and his wife were looking for a way to make a bigger difference, beyond just business. He'd heard about human trafficking and found it appalling.

But the question was, how could he help stop it?

“Human trafficking is a difficult subject to go volunteer in. You can’t sign up, to say, go on a raid, very easily,​” says Schmidt.​ “And the fact that this kind of stuff was happening, just really grabbed my wife and I.”

Schmidt sold his company and rather than build a new organization, he decided to invent a project and dive in and do some work.

He came up with the idea for ENDcrowd, a crowd-funding website where individuals can give to projects that are specifically focused on ending human-trafficking.

ENDcrowd is similar to other crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, but with a specific focus of only funding projects that help fight modern-day slavery.

“We wanted to take the big picture of what slavery looks like in the world today and break it down into palatable, specific understandable chunks, that a person could get excited and engaged with and thus become activated in the abolition movement,” says Schmidt.

In eastern India, his brainchild is helping girls who've escaped their traffickers find a safe place to live and empowering them with tools to make a living.

Sarah Symons is the founder and executive director of Made By Survivors, which is getting set to open a brand-new shelter in Jalpaiguri, that can accommodate 125 victims of human trafficking.

A major component of the shelter, will be providing the survivors with a skill.

"We're looking to offer employment training and entrepreneurial skills to the older girls," says Symons, "with the hopes that they will go on to earn high status and high wage jobs to pull them out of the depths of poverty."

Their request? $3,000, to pay for benches and jewelry-making equipment. The goal was funded by 28 backers via ENDcrowd.

"I was amazed that it came together so quickly. The needs of our survivors can sometimes feel overwhelming, but when everyone pulls together, we can meet those needs and provide life-changing opportunities to more women and children," says Symons.

“We want them to follow from the donation to the implementation, so they actually get to witness the joy and the victory in this," says Schmidt. "And that we can have an influence and a win in this fight that seems unwinnable. The wins just look different than what we all imagined they would be.”

In Cambodia, AIM's dream of providing young students a safe passage to school was met by 56 backers, who combined to give $10,000 to buy a van.

"We plan to give the backers updates on the process, including when we’ve narrowed down the van they want, when it’s purchased and when it finally arrives and the first day it actually takes the children to school."

They also plan to have fun with it. The biggest funders get to put their names on the van and one actually gets to name it.

Other current projects include efforts to fund programs at six after-care homes featured in the documentary film, In Plain Sight.

For Schmidt, it comes down to an unshakable belief in equality, no matter where a person lives. “Our daughters are very special to us, but they are no more important that any 4, 6 and 9-year-olds anywhere on Earth.”

Neither India nor Cambodia fully complies with U.S. minimum standards on eliminating trafficking, meaning that they are listed on Tier 2 (India) or Tier 2 Watch List (Cambodia) of the State Department’s 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report. But both nations have made attempts in recent years to improve their anti-trafficking record.

]]>http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2015/01/30/crowd-sourcing-to-fight-human-trafficking/feed/42015-02-03T11:34:12+00:00freedom-project-jewels-large-169simonrushtonxQ&A with Sanjay Rawal, director of Food Chainshttp://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2014/11/19/qa-with-sanjay-rawal-director-of-food-chains/
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2014/11/19/qa-with-sanjay-rawal-director-of-food-chains/#commentsWed, 19 Nov 2014 22:23:30 +0000http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/?p=5464]]>Food Chains, a documentary that examines the plight of farm laborers in the U.S., releases to the American public on Friday. CNN asked its director, Sanjay Rawal, about the movie and how it came to be made.

CNN: How did you come to learn about this issue, and why did you decide a film needed to be made?

Rawal: This film represents the intersection of three parts of my life. I moved to New York City to pursue truth (studying with an Indian mystic); I spent the last 15 years as a human rights consultant; and I was born into an agricultural family. Food Chains, for me, is the pursuit of justice in our Food Chains with an eye to expanding people’s hearts as to the contributions of the millions of workers that make our meals possible.

CNN: What was the most surprising thing you found while making this movie?

Rawal: We look at supermarkets as benign, neighborly institutions when they’re anything but. The supermarket industry is as large as tech. And the companies within the grocery sector are bigger. Walmart’s grocery division alone made almost twice as much gross revenue than Apple.

CNN: Does anything you see offer hope that conditions are improving?

Rawal: Modern-day slavery, sexual harassment, wage theft - these are realities within farm labor but no longer in the Florida tomato industry. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, together with Florida tomato farmers, has transformed what was known as ground zero for modern-day slavery in the U.S., into the most progressive sector of American agriculture.

CNN: Did you encounter any resistance as you made this film?

Rawal: We have encountered stiff resistance from the supermarket industry. Farmers have been very appreciative because they suffer daily under the massive pressure supermarkets place on them. Grocery is an industry that’s frankly out of control.

CNN: How has the film been received?

Rawal: We’ve had a stellar reaction from chefs, foodies and farmworkers. I think it’s clear from the film how we’re all connected to one another through the food system.

CNN: What do you hope this film will accomplish?

Rawal: We need major corporations like supermarkets and fast food chains to adopt the few farmworker rights programs out there. The CIW’s Fair Food Program is one.

CNN: How do you expect people to react to this documentary?

Rawal: I think people will be shocked by the footage we have (shot by the amazing Forest Woodward), but they’ll also feel hopeful, that there is a solution to the exploitation of workers.

CNN: You weren’t scared to go after some very large corporations and industry associations. Why did you think it was important to name names and direct some of the tension in the documentary towards particular organizations?

Rawal: We’ve seen the horrendous mushrooming of corporate influence in this country, effectively neutering legislators who are beholden these sources of campaign dollars. If legislators won’t fight for our food system, we have to - by attacking the companies atop the food chain.

CNN: Who funded the movie and why?

Rawal: We received support from a number of brave foundations including Bertha, Fledgling, Humanity United, 11th Hour, and Public Welfare. They all understand that corporate influence on our food system must be addressed and that human rights should apply to those who bring us our food.

CNN: What can people do to make a difference to the conditions of farm laborers?

Rawal: We need to support worker-driven movements. No one can guarantee the true sourcing of a product more than a worker. We need to support worker organizations and programs like the Fair Food Program that can guarantee the rights and wages of those who pick our food.

CNN: Will this movie be posted online and will it be released outside the U.S.

Rawal: We’re available on iTunes now and will be in theaters internationally in 2015. We will also be on Netflix in 2015 too.

The documentary, produced by actress Eva Longoria and narrated by Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, examines working conditions for laborers harvesting tomatoes in Immokalee, Florida, and grapes in California's wine region Napa Valley.

It follows the fight of some laborers taking on big business interests to establish their rights.

The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and recently played at the Napa Valley Film Festival, and by the reaction in the Napa Valley Register, certainly prompted strong debate.

]]>http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2014/11/18/fight-for-freedom-on-u-s-farms-documented-by-food-chains-movie/feed/22014-11-18T15:40:07+00:00VP, CNN International Digital ServicesISIS says Islam justifies slavery - what does Islamic law say?http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2014/11/05/isis-says-islam-justifies-slavery-what-does-islamic-law-say/
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2014/11/05/isis-says-islam-justifies-slavery-what-does-islamic-law-say/#commentsWed, 05 Nov 2014 22:19:35 +0000http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/?p=5452]]>Professor Bernard Freamon teaches courses on modern-day slavery and human trafficking at Seton Hall University School of Law in New Jersey and also specializes in Islamic Legal History. He is currently writing a book, “Islam, Slavery and Empire in the Indian Ocean World.” The views in this article are his alone.

In the past few months, the world has witnessed horrific accounts of the enslavement of thousands of innocent Yazidis and other religious minorities by ISIS partisans in Iraq and Syria.

In a recent article in its online English-language magazine, ISIS ideologues offered legal justifications for the enslavement of these non-Muslim non-combatants, stating that “enslaving the families of the kuffar [infidels] and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah or Islamic law.”

The article argues, based on a variety of Shariah sources, that ISIS partisans have a religious duty to kill or enslave members of the Yazidi community as part of their struggle [jihad] against their enemies.

This argument is plainly wrong, hypocritical and astonishingly ahistorical, relying on male fantasies inspired by stories from the days of imperial Islam.

It is also an affront to right-thinking Muslims everywhere and a criminal perversion of Islamic law, particularly its primary source, the Glorious Quran.

Jurists around the world acknowledge that there is now a universal consensus recognizing an irrefutable human right to be free from slavery and slave-trading.

This right, like the rights to be free from genocide, torture, racial discrimination and piracy, has become a bedrock principle of human affairs. ISIS seeks to remove Islamic jurisprudence from this universal consensus by citing Quranic verses that recognize the existence of chattel slavery.

Citation to Quranic verses on chattel slavery at first blush seems to make this point because the Quran, like other religious texts, accepted the existence of chattel slavery as a fact of life at the time of its revelation.

It is also true, however, that the Quran established an entirely new ethic on the issue of slavery and ISIS’s selective use of certain Quranic texts to justify contemporary chattel slavery ignores this fact.

First, consistent with the new ethic, the emphasis in all of the revelations on slavery is on the emancipation of slaves, not on their capture or the continuation of the institution of slavery. (See, for example, verses 2:177, 4:25, 4:92, 5:89, 14:31, 24:33, 58:3, 90:1-12.)

There is not one single verse suggesting that the practice should continue. Further, the Quran makes no mention of slave-markets or slave-trading and it repeatedly exhorts believers to free their slaves as an exemplification of their piety and belief in God.

Perhaps the best example of this emancipatory ethic is chapter 90, which is explicitly addressed to the Prophet Muhammad. It posits that there are two roads one can take in life and that the “high road” is the one that leads the righteous human being to free slaves.

The Prophet followed this exhortation, exhibiting a great solicitude for the material and spiritual condition of the slaves in the society around him. His example inspired his companions to emancipate thousands of slaves and, in an oft-quoted statement, he remarked that he would meet the man who “sells a free man as a slave and devours his price” on Judgment Day.

This is an explicit condemnation of trafficking in free human beings.

It is true that there are reported examples from the Prophet’s life that describe him as giving and receiving slaves and he even used slavery as a tool of conquest in war.

He freed all of his individually owned slaves and the wartime circumstances in those reports were very unique, involving specific people who engaged in war or treachery against him.

There is only one Quranic verse, 47:4, that authorizes capture of prisoners of war and it does not permit slavery, ordering military commanders to either free the prisoners gratis or hold them for ransom.

Enslaving a prisoner of war is therefore arguably illegal and certainly enslaving a non-combatant is likewise an Islamic crime.

Many forget that, for hundreds of years, Muslim imperialists and slave-traders illegally raided non-combatant villages in Eastern Europe, West Africa, East Africa, India and Southeast Asia, plundering, pillaging and capturing and raping women and children with impunity under pretextual jihads.

It seems that the ISIS ideologues want to revive this shameful legacy.

Traditionalist interpreters conclude that slavery is lawful in Islam simply because there is Quranic legislation regulating it, suggesting an implied permission.

Even the traditionalists must acknowledge, however, that all of the Quranic verses on slavery arise in contexts that overwhelmingly encourage emancipation.

Why is this? It is because the Quranic intendment contemplated a gradual disappearance of chattel slavery.

This is exactly what has happened in history. ISIS refers to the disappearance of chattel slavery in the Muslim world as an “abandonment” of the Shariah.

This is wrong. Rather, the verses contemplate the advent of a slavery-free society through the vehicle of emancipation.

There is another verse in the Quran, 3:64, that interpreters have argued may actually be explicit authority for abolition.

It condemns any “person of the book” who seeks lordship over another human being. Sayyid Qutb, the Sunni theologian and commentator on the Quran who is widely admired by literalists and traditionalists like the ISIS ideologues, offered extensive commentary on this verse in his masterful work, Fi Zilal al-Quran ("In the Shade of the Quran").

Commenting on the verse, he observed that enslaving human beings, like Pharaoh enslaved the Hebrews, is the “worst type of corruption.”

He argued that the verse aims to make sure that “none is elevated above another,” that “none enslaves another,” and that human beings “do not enslave one another.”

He posits that Islam is “total liberation of man from enslavement by others.” A number of other prominent jurists have agreed with this position.

Recently, a number of well-respected Muslim jurists and opinion-makers directed a letter to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, covering a number of issues.

On the issue of slavery, they observed that “[n]o scholar of Islam disputes that one of Islam’s aims is to abolish slavery” and that there has been a Muslim consensus on the prohibition of slavery for over a century.

This opinion further supports the conclusion that ISIS has wrongfully enslaved the Yazidis and others.

All right-thinking Muslims should condemn it for these acts and work to free all those who are enslaved.

Jana was a 19-year-old in her final year of high school, with dreams of becoming a doctor. Then, ISIS came to her village last August.

She described to me in chilling detail, how the jihadis first demanded that members of her Yazidi religious minority convert to Islam. Then they stripped villagers of their jewelry, money and cellphones. They separated the men from the women.

A United Nations report explained what happened next. ISIS "gathered all the males older than 10 years of age at the local school, took them outside the village by pick-up trucks, and shot them."

Among those believed dead were Jana's father and eldest brother.

A different fate lay in store for the women.

]]>http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2014/10/30/treated-like-cattle-yazidi-women-sold-raped-enslaved-by-isis/feed/62014-10-30T11:20:28+00:00VP, CNN International Digital ServicesReport shines light on slave labor in U.S.http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2014/10/21/report-shines-light-on-slave-labor-in-u-s/
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2014/10/21/report-shines-light-on-slave-labor-in-u-s/#commentsTue, 21 Oct 2014 20:16:09 +0000http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/?p=5446]]>They work on U.S. construction sites and farms, in restaurants and hotels, even in homes.

Foreign workers, lured by false promises of good jobs in America, soon find themselves enslaved in plain sight as victims of labor trafficking, according to a new report published by the nonpartisan Urban Institute and Northeastern University.